Sean Hannity says powerful pressure came down on him to steer his Fox News viewers toward COVID-19 vaccination, even though he believed medical choices belonged between each person and a doctor.
The Fox News host revisited the pandemic on his “Hang Out” podcast with internist Drew Pinsky, casting his vaccine-era messaging as something he never felt fully equipped to deliver.
“I was being pressured – pressured – to tell my audience to take the jab,” Hannity said.
His discomfort, he told Pinsky, came from the obvious gap between hosting a cable news show and knowing the medical histories of millions of viewers.
🚨Sean Hannity is NOT apologizing for refusing to be pressured into telling his audience to take the COVID vaccine.
“I was being pressured to tell my audience to take the jab. I’m not a doctor.”
God bless @seanhannity for not caving. pic.twitter.com/dnDmHj0i0m
— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) October 7, 2026
“And I’m like: ‘I’m not a doctor. I’m just not. I don’t know anything about your health, I don’t know anything about your preexisting conditions, your current condition, comorbidities you may have, and I don’t know anything about this shot,’” Hannity explained.
Rather than issue a blanket order, Hannity described booking guests who disagreed and repeatedly sending viewers back to their own physicians.
“But I kept putting people with different views on and I said: ‘Take it seriously, consult your doctor, make your own mind up,’” he recalled.
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He left unanswered who was leaning on him and when the alleged pressure took place.
The podcast claim reframed one of Hannity’s more visible pandemic-era turns, when he went from playing down the virus to telling viewers that COVID-19 had to be treated seriously.
“Please take Covid seriously. I can’t say it enough. Enough people have died. We don’t need any more death,” Hannity told viewers in July 2021.
“It absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated. I believe in science, I believe in the science of vaccination,” he added at the time.
Before that shift, Hannity had devoted airtime to likening COVID-19 to the flu and accusing Democrats of using the virus as a political weapon against President Trump.
Pinsky endorsed Hannity’s decision to go along with the alleged push as “the right thing,” while drawing his own objection around vaccine requirements.
“The mandates came along, you couldn’t move in the world without getting the shot, and that’s the egregious part,” Pinsky said.
Hannity’s frustration on the podcast stretched beyond the pressure he claimed he faced from others.
He dismissed as “bullsh*t” the idea that vaccination would stop people from getting the virus or affecting other people.
Pinsky agreed as Hannity argued that Anthony Fauci’s recently released diary showed the American medical establishment had allegedly lied to the public.
Hannity also called it “unbelievable” that pregnant women and young children are still receiving the vaccine, saying the risk-reward balance does not make sense to him.
Medical experts have categorized the vaccines Hannity discussed as safe for the public, including pregnant women and children.
Hannity’s podcast comments landed during another turbulent stretch for Fox News, with Trump publicly attacking the network over candidate interviews, rally coverage and airtime for Democrats.
On Tuesday, Trump used Truth Social to object to Fox interviews with Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI) and Dan Osborn (I-NE), asking why the network would give Osborn a platform while he is running against Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE).
Trump labeled Osborn a “sleazebag,” called Ricketts a “GREAT Republican Senator,” and pointed to his Nebraska wins in 2016, 2020 and 2024 as a “miracle … by a landslide.”
El-Sayed’s interview with Martha MacCallum drew another round of anger from Trump.
“All they talk about is Dumocrat Jihadists like El-Sayed, with his softball interview by Martha MacCallum, and the like,” Trump wrote. “She never interviews me like that. They don’t show my record breaking Rallies the morning after, but others do, and that’s what MAGA is watching.”
Trump also accused Fox News of giving El-Sayed more attention than “the good old fashioned Republicans, the people that have saved America, and are making it great again.”
The latest posts followed several days of complaints aimed at the network. On Sunday, Trump complained that “Fox & Friends” had not shown enough of recent Republican rallies in Ohio, Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma, calling the events “the hottest things out there” and writing that “nothing shows up on Fox!”
“Other networks are reporting about these Rallies, and really positively, like ‘crazy!’” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Our people want to see our Rallies, and reports on our Rallies, on FoxNews, or they will very quickly stop watching (like I am doing right now!).”
Last Wednesday, Trump had already accused Fox News of giving Democrats “more airtime than Pro Republicans.”
“They repeat a completely negative narrative, on and on it goes, and then we get a quick retort. It’s truly amazing that I won all three Elections,” Trump wrote, repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Biden.
Fox News and other major TV networks that share rotating presidential coverage for wider distribution stopped that coverage last month after Trump triedto bar CNN, Politico and MS NOW from covering the White House.
Even as Trump criticized the network, Fox was preparing to add another figure from his orbit.
Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is joining Fox News as a contributor at the beginning of November after leaving the Trump administration, the network announced Monday.
Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott pointed to Leavitt’s White House and campaign trail experience as giving her “a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape.”
“We look forward to her providing our audience with authentic and sharp insight across all FOX News Media platforms,” Scott stated.
Leavitt said she was “grateful for the opportunity” to continue on Fox News Channel as an official member of the network’s team.
“I look forward to bringing my unique perspective from my experience as White House Press Secretary, along with the same energy and candor that defined my tenure, to Fox’s millions of viewers across their many platforms,” Leavitt continued.
Trump announced in August that Leavitt would leave the White House “at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family.”
He also wrote that Leavitt would become “one of my top outside advisors” and “an influential voice within the Republican Party” as Republicans work “to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections.”